Have a donut.

Ok. Tomorrow I am fifty. Really a strange thing to experience. My mind seems to be the same. I always was forgetful.  The body, although my hair is grayer and thinner, is in as bad a shape as it ever was.  Hmmm. Oh yeah, my knees ache a lot.  Sometimes I am surprised when I look in the mirror.  I see my grandfather.  Time does seem to go faster as we age.  The forties went so fast.  I have come to the conclusion that although I physically seem to age at a reasonable pace or at a "normal" pace my mind doesn't want to accept that I am fifty.  I thought thirty was a big deal. Then I thought forty was a milestone. Fifty? Sucks. Senior menu at Denny's...  Hey I kinda like the idea.  

Anyway, how about a donut?

  This piece, "Yellow Donut with Sprinkles" is a painting that I am revitalizing. I first painted it in 2001 and was part of a triptych called "The Holy Trinity".  I am giving it a bit of a facelift and sending it off as a solo piece. 

It's been a while since I worked in oils. I am enjoying the process. I haven't done "sweet" paintings in a long time.  I've added more images of dessert/donut paintings that happen to have sprinkles to the blog (in the right hand column) and there are more at my website http://www.marknobriga.com

Look for this painting at the SJICA auction this Fall in San Jose.

Good Clean Fun

Jean Luc Godard was right. What can be more fun than a girl and a gun? 

One of my many interests is film editing. I searched high and low and searched through many many films to find classic clips of women brandishing firearms. I put them together with an ol' Joe Tex song. The result is this...

Not sure where I developed such an interest in guns (a loaded subject :{). They've been the topic of a lot of my work for a long time.  I've heard it said that the right to bear arms is "deeply entrenched in the American Psyche" and I believe it.  Is it the right to bear arms or maybe we just love guns? 

Just look at our movies.

The End of the First Half or, What is the sound of one hand clapping?

Long time since I last posted. Funny thing is, I don't think anybody reads this. Two hands clap and there is a sound. What is the sound of one hand clapping?

It's about time that I put more of my work here. Nancy thinks that I should do work in progress reports about my current projects. I don't have anything to show that's new but...

To the right you can see a picture of my painting, Snarling Dick, a portrait of Dick Cheney.

Here's an interesting photo. Not mine but worth noting. From Beijing shows what Bush has done to the country. Or how he displays the flag. I'm not sure.

Fareed Zakaria has written an article in Newsweek - What Bush Got Right I have a lot of respect for Zakaria. He's a smart guy. Actually finds some positive words about the later GW Bush administration. 

They did something right!? I do not believe it.

But, enough of that.

Did I mention what "The End of the First Half" means? Guess not. It refers to my life. On the 23rd I turn fifty years old.  Same as it ever was...

Is it really the same as it ever was?? 

Yeah.

HAPPY NEW YEAR

It's 2008 and am remembering when I was ten years old and I figured out how old I'd be in the year 2000. WOW - forty-two! Forty-two seemed really old when I was ten. Fortunately, forty-two is the new thirty-two. I am not so much older than that now but for some reason years are much shorter now. Anyway, seems like I have spent most of my life trying to figure out what I am and where I fit in the world. I have been an actor, a director, an artist, a painter, a student, a teacher, a (step) parent, a child, and on and on. I am still all of those things on some level. I started doing self portraits at about age twelve, undoubtedly inspired by Vincent Van Gogh's self portraits I'd seen in a book.

Artists have explored the image of the "self" (and others) for a very long time and the list of artists who have done some form of self portrait is very very long. Reakton Books Ltd. has published a book by Richard Brilliant entitled (amazingly enough) Portraiture, a theoretical study that looks at the way we look at ourselves. He explores the portrait from antiquity through contemporary history. A bit dense in the first chapter, 'The Authority of the Likeness', but it starts to pick up speed in the second, 'Fashioning the Self'. Brilliant presents some interesting observations and arguments regarding the many faces of portraiture.

The book is available at Amazon.com...here.

I'll be showing some of my self portraits as well as several other pieces at Los Medanos College from January 23rd through February 24th. Here's a link to the gallery's webpage:

Los Medanos College Art Department

Here are some links to sites with self portraits:

http://userpages.umbc.edu/~ivy/selfportrait/intro.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-portrait

http://www.artlex.com/ArtLex/s/self-portrait.html

And here's the link to my webpage that shows my self portrait work:

http://www.marknobriga.com/portraits.html

Little Boxes, Little Boxes

Okay.  I saw the Joseph Cornell: Navigating the Imagination retrospective at SFMOMA yesterday.  I am sorry to say that I am somewhat disappointed. I have always found Cornell's work fascinating and magical.  I still do. Unfortunately his box pieces were all encased in plexiglass boxes, two or more to a box.  Few were 360 degree accessible --and doesn't it seem necessary to view three dimensional art all the way around. Duh.  Nothing like looking through a box to see a box. So I wasn't disappointed with the show, just the way it was exhibited. How bout letting us SEE the art. Okay, okay, I know the work is fragile, but everything is already encased in a box.

On the flip side, it was a comprehensive survey of his work and had artifacts from his studio. Seeing the bits and pieces of detritus and their storage boxes gives the viewer a sense of Cornell's process. It's a bit like looking through his sketchbook and sifting through an encyclopedic collection of little junk that aspires to be art.

Cornell's work is poetic, playful, creative, and mystical.  Although the exhibition sanitizes, qualifies, and catalogues the work, it remains intriguing and enigmatic.

Here's the link to SFMOMA's Cornell page:

http://www.sfmoma.org/exhibitions/exhib_detail.asp?id=264

Link to Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, Massachusetts (Co-Orinators of the exhibition with the Smithsonian):

http://www.pem.org/exhibitions/exhibition.php?id=60

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By the way...Here's a little-known fact: The song Little Boxes written by Malvina Reynolds, in 1962- You know...there are green ones and there are yellow ones, etc.  was written about Daly City. Wanna see some of those "box" houses? Look at paintings by artist Eileen David. Actually, many of her little boxes are in San Francisco, although Eileen has done paintings of Daly City (unfortunately not as romantic as the city by the bay). 

Here's her website: http://www.eileendavid.com/

  

New Day New Blog

Today is a good day to start.  

Going to visit SF MOMA tomorrow to see Joseph Cornell's work.  Have done some three-dimensional box pieces myself, but Cornell made a lifetime of building boxes with stuff in them. Every time I decide to not renew my museum membership they come up with a blockbuster show that I really have to see. This Cornell show is one of those.

Here's the link to SFMOMA's Cornell page:

http://www.sfmoma.org/exhibitions/exhib_detail.asp?id=264

For those interested in my work, I'll be showing at Los Medanos College in Antioch this January. Here's a link to my website: 

http://www.marknobriga.com

On my home page you'll find information about the show.  

Finished work on Jake and Ronne a video short that I produced and directed. More information soon.